A heart valve normally allows blood flow in only one direction through the heart. The four valves commonly represented in a mammalian heart determine the pathway of blood flow through the heart. A heart valve opens or closes incumbent upon differential blood pressure on each side.
The four valves in the heart are:
- The two atrioventricular (AV) valves, which are between the atria and the ventricles, are the mitral valve and the tricuspid valve.
- The two semilunar (SL) valves, which are in the arteries leaving the heart, are the aortic valve and the pulmonary valve.
A form of heart disease occurs when a valve malfunctions and allows some blood to flow in the wrong direction. This is called regurgitation.
Read more about Heart Valve: Atrioventricular or Cuspid Valves, Semilunar Valves, Heart Valve Dynamics
Famous quotes containing the word heart:
“He prayed more deeply for simple selflessness than he had ever prayed before—and, feeling an uprush of grace in the very intention, shed the night in his heart and called it light. And walking out of the little church he felt confirmed in not only the worth of his whispered prayer but in the realization, as well, that Christ had become man and not some bell-shaped Corinthian column with volutes for veins and a mandala of stone foliage for a heart.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)